As much as anything else, this trip will be an experiment in rolling with the punches. While we have spared no time in the meticulous planning of this endeavor, we recognize also that much must be left to chance. Our first flirtation with that fickle mistress occurred some days ago when your corespondent Mr. Scott Norton received an unexpected communication informing him that his subsequent employer would be requiring his services, beginning at the unanticipatedly early date of July 13th.We immediately set to reformulating the plan.Some things were for sure: we could not cut our visits to Varanasi, or the Sunday market in Kashgar. So we began to assemble a new itinerary.The gods were with us for the time, as we were able to construct without too much difficulty a new itinerary, which achieved these goals. Major components to be cut were the entire west and norther components of the India portion of the trip and bicycling across South Korea.

Having already purchased tickets from Kolkata to Hong Kong on Jet Airways, we needed to change those reservations. Yet, after some conversation with Jet’s customer service executives, we discovered this task could only be done in person. Enter Nakil Kulkarni, head of the AsiaWheeling Bangalore office, and Chief Snakcharmer for AsiaWheeling global. As always, Nakil’s reputation precedes him, in the same way lightning precedes thunder. So you, dear readers will find it no great surprise that, against fantastic odds, Nakil traversed miles of treacherous terrain and plunged himself into intense negotiations on our behalf with officials at said airline. After some hours a deal was struck, and AsiaWheeling once again enjoyed the calm which precedes an upcoming storm.May we, your humble correspondents, never cease to be reminded that we ride only on the shoulders of such giants as comprise the AsiaWheeling board of advisers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under India, Preparation, Uncategorized, Woody. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.